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Topic: blending yeasts (Read 504 times)

Any of you ever blend yeast strains? I'm about to embark on my first experience doing this, albeit by complete accident.

Was making a yeast starter in prep for a Saturday brew day this weekend. And to make a long story short I accidentally grabbed jars of different yeasts and threw them into the starter wort before I noticed (yes, I know I could simply throw the starter out and start all over, but where's the fun in that?).

I store my yeast in small jars and grabbed three to throw in the starter. Thought I was grabbing three WLP001s, but, because I can't be bothered to read my own labels, ended up with one WLP001 and two WLP300s.

Anyway, the plan was to brew up a simple amber ale this weekend, but I do have stuff to make a blonde ale. So my questions....1) Which beer should I brew with this yeast combo?2) Do you think one yeast will dominate the other in the finished product?3) I hadn't really thought too much about blending yeasts before.....Any recommendations on other combos?

I have blended the wlp565 and the wlp644 in my Saison. The wlp565 was dominant at first. But, as it aged, the 644 took over. BY the way, it made it to the NHC Finals a few years ago.When I blend yeast strains, I choose strains that ferment in the same temperature range. The wlp001 range is 68-73 degrees (as per their website). The wlp300 is 68-72 degrees. So, it should be an interesting beer ( and experiment).

Not that exiting, but I often ferment with a mix of us-05 an s-04. It was a tip to make the beer clearer when bottling. It seems to work. Also I have blended cal common with Chico strains to make it a bit more attenuated. Also seems to work, but it is your path of getting different flavor profiles that seems most interesting.

I've made Dunkel using Saflager 23, 189 and threw in Omega Voss Kviek (a Norwegian farmhouse yeast) into the mix. I was hoping to perhaps influence a cross of yeast, with the Voss Kviek and make it into a warmer fermenting lager yeast in the end.

The only time I blended on purpose was for an English style where I used both Windsor and Nottingham together, which according to online advice is "a thing" these days. It worked quite well actually. Fermentation took off within a couple of hours of pitching, which I'm sure was the Windsor which is the fastest yeast I have ever seen, but then trailed off and took several days to finish, which I'm sure was the Notty. The finished beer was good in my recollection.

Other yeast combinations will often be much less predictable. There are so many hundreds of variables, it's difficult to know in every case exactly what will happen or whether one of the yeasts will totally override and overwhelm the character of the finished beer and just leave the other yeast in the dust. It has a lot to do with how healthy and happy each yeast is, and how fast it tends to act. The slower yeast will lose out in many cases, as far as I can tell.

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Dave

The world will become a much more pleasant place to live when each and every one of us realizes that we are all idiots.

The only time I blended on purpose was for an English style where I used both Windsor and Nottingham together, which according to online advice is "a thing" these days. It worked quite well actually. Fermentation took off within a couple of hours of pitching, which I'm sure was the Windsor which is the fastest yeast I have ever seen, but then trailed off and took several days to finish, which I'm sure was the Notty. The finished beer was good in my recollection.

Windsor/Notty is a very good combo. The only times I've blended is when there's a freaky long lead time and I freak out and pitch whatever I have available. Which did result in the Windsor/Notty combo which did result in a very good beer.